First of all, "keyboard enthusiasts" exist? I can't think of a more boring thing to be enthusiastic about...
Secondly, lacking the media keys isn't a small point. I don't see eye-to-eye with CmdrTaco on many, many things, but I do agree that, at this point in time, every keyboard should have(in order of importance) 1) Mute/Unmute 2) Volume Up 3) Volume Down 4) Play/Pause 5) Chapter/track Forward 6) Chapter/track Back
More than that is probably excessive, but lacking a "Mute" key is unacceptable.
How is 400 MB even slightly an issue? My Windows Vista "Windows" folder is 6+ GB right now, although that might include some caching and such that isn't on the install disk. Either way, 400 MB is nothing. (And that all said, I'm pretty sure OS 9 only weighed in at something like 120-140 MB. I used Mac OS 6.0.8->10.4, stopped when it became apparent Apple had no interest in improving basic OS components like Finder and instead focused on adding shiny crap I don't need or use.)
Anyway, I think the real problem is OS integration. Any legacy support "layer" from Windows would need basically full access to things outside the layer, from drivers to OS features like drag&drop. This makes the process of writing this layer extremely complex, and could potentially erase any speed improvements Windows 7 could benefit from in the first place.
Classic had two problems:
1) It was slow, very slow. Classic running, even when totally idle, slowed down OS X by something like 40%. Which I think is due to the issues I brought up in the last paragraph.
2) It didn't run hardly any goddamned applications. Sure, Classic emulated the 10 or 15 most popular OS 9 apps, but it was hitting pretty damned low in the compatibility chart. Among the software I owned, it ran maybe 75%, at best. Microsoft can't afford that; 75% compatibility would put them out of business. Vista has like 95% compatibility, and you've heard all the whining around it.
What I'm complaining about has *nothing* to do with being modular.
There's no reason VNC couldn't just use the SSH "module" automatically and by default. It just... doesn't. Saying VNC should automatically use encryption != saying Unix should no longer be modular.
That aside, though, the modular approach seems kind of ridiculous if you took it to the logical extreme. I mean, every time VNC needs to draw a rectangle on the screen it should use another executable to do it, right? Otherwise, it's just not modular-- and if someone came up with a better way to draw rectangles, VNC wouldn't be able to take advantage of it.
Honestly, I didn't even know there was a little button on the controller until I just read that... I figured the one on the Xbox was for third-party peripherals.
Security is a failure if it doesn't take human behavior into effect. The simple fact is that the password system is broken, fundamentally, because *everybody* shares passwords between different services, simply because they don't have the memory for anything else. (And I know, any second now the Slashdot wag who actually does use a different password will chime in.)
Unless the system works for the random man-on-the-street without requiring months of training, or a nasty failure before they learn, it's a failure.
If the major browsers all supported web standards properly, web developers can write one set of code with no complex exceptions for specific badly behaved browsers. The industry is such that the lowest common demoninator case is the one that you get authorization to code for (some companies are better about that than others, but I've never worked for such a company). The upshot is that there are nifty things that web developers CAN deliver, even if we work in environments where we're allowed the time to only make one straight base of code, but ONLY if the major browsers are on a similar level of standards support.
That refutes my argument... how?
To summarize, you're saying my argument that web standards only benefit web developers is false because [long list of things that only benefit web developers]. Brilliant, Sherlock.
I wonder why other browser makers have no such problems, then? You seem to be under the impression that no other browser has good standards support,
How do you know? There's no reference implementation! Firefox contains the same amount of legacy Netscape crap that IE7 does IE4 crap.
Until the W3C does the bare minimum of work to actually assist developers implement their standards by creating a reference implementation, I don't see why I should spend even half-a-second listening to them. Besides, most of the standards created in the last 10 years were created by bitter anti-Microsoft dweebs (at least that's the impression I get), so of course IE doesn't meet any of them; they're purposefully designed to be the opposite of what IE already did. Standards created in the ivory tower of academics who have no clue how the web actually is used by normal people. (Hint: we already had separated style and content, it's called a "CMS".)
I've yet to see a single compelling argument of how web standard compliance helps the user.
Why the hell should users care about making your job easier? Why would you expect them to care?
Out of curiosity. I think it's goofy that this whole push for web standards benefits only a very very small proportion of the population, i.e. web developers who mostly already know how to make websites work, at the expense of features that people can actually use to make their experience better.
In any case, it's pointless to code to standards until there's a reference implementation to check against.
Reading comprehension is fundamental: 1) The part I was referring to is talking about 16 steps to switch *back* to a wired connection after having used a wireless connection. I still stand by my statement that this should take exactly one step. 2) Of course, I also wrote that post before it was clear that this article is actually about Linux on the PS3, not the PS3's own OS. Thanks, shitty Slashdot editors, for not doing your job!
It does bring to mind one of the nice features of the PS3 though - when you plug in the USB cable to the controller it automagically sorts out the Bluetooth pairing for you. It's a fairly minor thing I know, but a nice touch.
Or I'll just use my Xbox which "automagically" works even if you never, ever, plug your wireless controller cable in.
Fixing such problems is Gates' job, not the job of the poor end user or his problematic shoes. Well, it was Gates' job - he failed at building a truly usable OS (yes, I know it's hard), but I understand they paid him pretty well anyway.
I think as far as "truly usable OSes" go, Windows is hitting second-place no problem. (I'm guessing the generally-agreed-upon order would be OS X -> Windows -> Linux -> Everything Else.) Frankly, I think Microsoft does a pretty good job. (Most of the problems in that email are problems with their website, which suffers badly from "Enterprise-itis." It's still better than IBM's POS useless website, though.)
I have a fantasy of going to a HP board meeting with a new-in-box HP laptop, a new-in-box Dell laptop and a new-in-box Apple laptop. Then unpack all laptops, plug them in, and hold them captive while you see how long it takes to do a specific task (say, view www.hp.com.)
The Dell and Apple machines will be done after maybe 5 minutes of "register your product"-type of dialogs. The HP laptop, however, will still be rebooting 20 minutes later while installing all the crapware they include with the system, and that's assuming it has a working browser at all*. Two hours later, when the HP is actually ready to view a webpage, I'd hope they might realize what kind of junk they've been selling to the unsuspecting public.
Yeah, Microsoft has usability problems, but a lot of their problems step from OEMs like HP completely and utterly screwing over their customers. (And customers who take it!)
*) When I turned on my HP tablet it was entirely impossible to use it as a tablet at first, because HP screwed up the install order and it was asking you to use the on-screen keyboard many steps ahead of letting you calibrate the screen. The pen is virtually useless without calibration. Fortunately, my tablet happened to be a convertible, so it had a keyboard, but I'd feel really sorry for someone who had a pure tablet.
Hmm.. an advaced open source driver framework for *nixses, at best already known and used by manufactureres. How 'bout I/O Kit from the XNU kernel porting is not that hard, is it?
No, porting is not "that" hard. But they're still not going to bother if the cost of porting is greater than the income from supporting Linux which, in nearly all cases, it is. If porting was nearly free, or if Linux just ran the Windows drivers, then you'd suddenly have a whole boatload of drivers you don't have now.
In any case, you can't have an elitist super-geek "porting isn't that hard, you just suck at computers" attitude if you're trying to work with people. You'll just alienate them and end up right where you started.
And it's not because it's nerdy (as the summary opines). It's simply because its about maintenance of poorly-designed shit. You might as well call it glorified janitorial work.
In contrast, creating new stuff, as actual programmers and engineers do -- that's interesting!
So to sum up, maintaining poorly-designed shit is glorified janitorial work, but making new poorly-designed shit is interesting?
there true enemy that needs to be defeated before Linux even has a chance at becoming mainstream:
Games for Windows
The fug-tards at Microsoft pay off every last PC game maker to put their dirty label on everything even the damn game reviews have that garbage label on it for god sakes.
Don't hold back; tell us how you really feel!
More seriously, though, the Games for Windows program is a natural response to the general crappiness of Windows games of the last few years. There have been tons of titles that: 1) Crash constantly 2) Don't support common configurations, like Internet Connection Sharing or widescreen monitors 3) Don't allow users to alt-tab to different applications, or run the game in windowed mode 4) Manage to sometimes not crash, but are otherwise extremely buggy to be almost unplayable 5) Require Admin permissions to run even though they're video games which, almost by definition, never need to perform any administrative tasks 6) Take months and months and months and years to finally port, or patch, their products to work in Vista. (As of a month ago, Punkbuster *still* didn't work correctly in Vista! Pathetic!!) etc.
Microsoft can control what's released on their game consoles, as they retain the final "yay or nay" before the games get published. That means Microsoft actually tests the games to make sure they work correctly, shock and horror.
They currently have absolutely no control over what's released for PC, which I'm sure the Slashdot community sees as a good thing, but in reality results in a lot of really, really crappy products.
After a couple weeks of trying (and failing) to look past Battlefield 2142's numerous, numerous crashes and bugs, I finally threw my hands up, said "fuck it," and vowed that I'm only going to buy Games for Windows games from now on. You know why? Games for Windows games are *tested* and they *fucking work!* It's obvious that DICE didn't give half-a-shit about the quality of their product, so screw them.
(Yes, yes, I know, tell us how I really feel. Hah.)
The only decent non-Games for Windows titles out right now is World of Warcraft, which would fail that certification anyway. (It stores user-configurable UI Add-Ins in the Program Files folder, thus requiring admin access when it shouldn't.) Everything else it's good at though.
P.S. I hear the latest patch for BF:2142 added widescreen support-- wow, welcome to 2001, DICE!
How many years has it been? I think it's time for the mountain to come to Mohammad on this issue.
If you want drivers, there's one thing you can do: Make it insanely easy to write drivers for Linux, or make it insanely easy for Linux to run existing Windows drivers.
Money talks; right now, companies don't write open source drivers because there's no money in it. Maintaining their drivers is more expensive, and there are very few customers (harsh but true) who actually care.
Dreamhost have about 3 or 4 IP addresses that all Dreamhost-hosted domains resolve to, and yet they are hosting thousand if not hundreds of thousands of domains. There's no limit to how many domains can be on a single IP, nor (for that matter) is there a limit on how many IP addresses can be used by a single domain. (All the Disney-owned sites are actually hosted by the single domain "go.com", including ABC, ESPN, etc.)
I'd just be happy if Amazon learned about "gifts." No, you computer program, I'm not a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan! My BROTHER is and I bought him a present! Cripes![1]
That said, I'm generally happy with its recommendations. Except once they recommended a pay-per-view event that actually prompted me to write an angry letter of the form "what the hell made your database think I had a ComCast subscription, more-over would be interested in pay-per-view?!) But those terrible recommendations only stand out because the good ones go unnoticed. I'm always first in line to get the next MST3K boxed set, because Amazon knows I like it and emails me when it comes out-- that's nice.
[1] Yes, I know you can look up the product again and click the little "don't use this product for recommendations" link, but that's a huge pain.
It's slightly better once you know that the slender "things" were actually future robots, not aliens. I agree, though, that movie should have ended at the bottom of the ocean; the end is just a cleap "tear-jerker" to get an emotional response and it dilutes the intellectual response.
Slashdot Mirror
Win + R opens the "run" box
The only thing missing is a built-in shortcut to open a command prompt.
Am I taking crazy-pills? The "Run" box is a command prompt, is it not?
First of all, "keyboard enthusiasts" exist? I can't think of a more boring thing to be enthusiastic about...
Secondly, lacking the media keys isn't a small point. I don't see eye-to-eye with CmdrTaco on many, many things, but I do agree that, at this point in time, every keyboard should have(in order of importance)
1) Mute/Unmute
2) Volume Up
3) Volume Down
4) Play/Pause
5) Chapter/track Forward
6) Chapter/track Back
More than that is probably excessive, but lacking a "Mute" key is unacceptable.
So... Honda Motorcycles will save them?
http://www.google.com/search?q=VT-x&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
What the F is VT-x, please? And why would it help Microsoft with their compatibility layer?
How is 400 MB even slightly an issue? My Windows Vista "Windows" folder is 6+ GB right now, although that might include some caching and such that isn't on the install disk. Either way, 400 MB is nothing. (And that all said, I'm pretty sure OS 9 only weighed in at something like 120-140 MB. I used Mac OS 6.0.8->10.4, stopped when it became apparent Apple had no interest in improving basic OS components like Finder and instead focused on adding shiny crap I don't need or use.)
Anyway, I think the real problem is OS integration. Any legacy support "layer" from Windows would need basically full access to things outside the layer, from drivers to OS features like drag&drop. This makes the process of writing this layer extremely complex, and could potentially erase any speed improvements Windows 7 could benefit from in the first place.
Classic had two problems:
1) It was slow, very slow. Classic running, even when totally idle, slowed down OS X by something like 40%. Which I think is due to the issues I brought up in the last paragraph.
2) It didn't run hardly any goddamned applications. Sure, Classic emulated the 10 or 15 most popular OS 9 apps, but it was hitting pretty damned low in the compatibility chart. Among the software I owned, it ran maybe 75%, at best. Microsoft can't afford that; 75% compatibility would put them out of business. Vista has like 95% compatibility, and you've heard all the whining around it.
What I'm complaining about has *nothing* to do with being modular.
There's no reason VNC couldn't just use the SSH "module" automatically and by default. It just ... doesn't. Saying VNC should automatically use encryption != saying Unix should no longer be modular.
That aside, though, the modular approach seems kind of ridiculous if you took it to the logical extreme. I mean, every time VNC needs to draw a rectangle on the screen it should use another executable to do it, right? Otherwise, it's just not modular-- and if someone came up with a better way to draw rectangles, VNC wouldn't be able to take advantage of it.
Maybe, but I've never had to do that, ever.
Honestly, I didn't even know there was a little button on the controller until I just read that... I figured the one on the Xbox was for third-party peripherals.
Security is a failure if it doesn't take human behavior into effect. The simple fact is that the password system is broken, fundamentally, because *everybody* shares passwords between different services, simply because they don't have the memory for anything else. (And I know, any second now the Slashdot wag who actually does use a different password will chime in.)
Unless the system works for the random man-on-the-street without requiring months of training, or a nasty failure before they learn, it's a failure.
Would be nice if VNC just did the freakin' encryption and screen locking by default and automatically, like Windows Remote Desktop.
Why does Linux stuff always have to be so goddamned hard to use? I swear, Linux coders simply hate end-users, there's no other explanation.
Incorrect assumption.
Ok, let's see your arguments:
If the major browsers all supported web standards properly, web developers can write one set of code with no complex exceptions for specific badly behaved browsers. The industry is such that the lowest common demoninator case is the one that you get authorization to code for (some companies are better about that than others, but I've never worked for such a company). The upshot is that there are nifty things that web developers CAN deliver, even if we work in environments where we're allowed the time to only make one straight base of code, but ONLY if the major browsers are on a similar level of standards support.
That refutes my argument... how?
To summarize, you're saying my argument that web standards only benefit web developers is false because [long list of things that only benefit web developers]. Brilliant, Sherlock.
I wonder why other browser makers have no such problems, then? You seem to be under the impression that no other browser has good standards support,
How do you know? There's no reference implementation! Firefox contains the same amount of legacy Netscape crap that IE7 does IE4 crap.
Until the W3C does the bare minimum of work to actually assist developers implement their standards by creating a reference implementation, I don't see why I should spend even half-a-second listening to them. Besides, most of the standards created in the last 10 years were created by bitter anti-Microsoft dweebs (at least that's the impression I get), so of course IE doesn't meet any of them; they're purposefully designed to be the opposite of what IE already did. Standards created in the ivory tower of academics who have no clue how the web actually is used by normal people. (Hint: we already had separated style and content, it's called a "CMS".)
I've yet to see a single compelling argument of how web standard compliance helps the user.
Why the hell should users care about making your job easier? Why would you expect them to care?
Out of curiosity. I think it's goofy that this whole push for web standards benefits only a very very small proportion of the population, i.e. web developers who mostly already know how to make websites work, at the expense of features that people can actually use to make their experience better.
In any case, it's pointless to code to standards until there's a reference implementation to check against.
We've already evolved enough. We have nuclear power plants, we have greenhouses, we have air conditioners. I'm pretty confident.
Biofuels anyone?
No thanks, I just ate.
Reading comprehension is fundamental:
1) The part I was referring to is talking about 16 steps to switch *back* to a wired connection after having used a wireless connection. I still stand by my statement that this should take exactly one step.
2) Of course, I also wrote that post before it was clear that this article is actually about Linux on the PS3, not the PS3's own OS. Thanks, shitty Slashdot editors, for not doing your job!
It does bring to mind one of the nice features of the PS3 though - when you plug in the USB cable to the controller it automagically sorts out the Bluetooth pairing for you. It's a fairly minor thing I know, but a nice touch.
Or I'll just use my Xbox which "automagically" works even if you never, ever, plug your wireless controller cable in.
It's exactly 15 steps too many.
The one step should be "plug in network cable."
Fixing such problems is Gates' job, not the job of the poor end user or his problematic shoes. Well, it was Gates' job - he failed at building a truly usable OS (yes, I know it's hard), but I understand they paid him pretty well anyway.
I think as far as "truly usable OSes" go, Windows is hitting second-place no problem. (I'm guessing the generally-agreed-upon order would be OS X -> Windows -> Linux -> Everything Else.) Frankly, I think Microsoft does a pretty good job. (Most of the problems in that email are problems with their website, which suffers badly from "Enterprise-itis." It's still better than IBM's POS useless website, though.)
I have a fantasy of going to a HP board meeting with a new-in-box HP laptop, a new-in-box Dell laptop and a new-in-box Apple laptop. Then unpack all laptops, plug them in, and hold them captive while you see how long it takes to do a specific task (say, view www.hp.com.)
The Dell and Apple machines will be done after maybe 5 minutes of "register your product"-type of dialogs. The HP laptop, however, will still be rebooting 20 minutes later while installing all the crapware they include with the system, and that's assuming it has a working browser at all*. Two hours later, when the HP is actually ready to view a webpage, I'd hope they might realize what kind of junk they've been selling to the unsuspecting public.
Yeah, Microsoft has usability problems, but a lot of their problems step from OEMs like HP completely and utterly screwing over their customers. (And customers who take it!)
*) When I turned on my HP tablet it was entirely impossible to use it as a tablet at first, because HP screwed up the install order and it was asking you to use the on-screen keyboard many steps ahead of letting you calibrate the screen. The pen is virtually useless without calibration. Fortunately, my tablet happened to be a convertible, so it had a keyboard, but I'd feel really sorry for someone who had a pure tablet.
Hmm.. an advaced open source driver framework for *nixses, at best already known and used by manufactureres. How 'bout I/O Kit from the XNU kernel porting is not that hard, is it?
No, porting is not "that" hard. But they're still not going to bother if the cost of porting is greater than the income from supporting Linux which, in nearly all cases, it is. If porting was nearly free, or if Linux just ran the Windows drivers, then you'd suddenly have a whole boatload of drivers you don't have now.
In any case, you can't have an elitist super-geek "porting isn't that hard, you just suck at computers" attitude if you're trying to work with people. You'll just alienate them and end up right where you started.
And it's not because it's nerdy (as the summary opines). It's simply because its about maintenance of poorly-designed shit. You might as well call it glorified janitorial work.
In contrast, creating new stuff, as actual programmers and engineers do -- that's interesting!
So to sum up, maintaining poorly-designed shit is glorified janitorial work, but making new poorly-designed shit is interesting?
Roger.
there true enemy that needs to be defeated before Linux even has a chance at becoming mainstream:
Games for Windows
The fug-tards at Microsoft pay off every last PC game maker to put their dirty label on everything even the damn game reviews have that garbage label on it for god sakes.
Don't hold back; tell us how you really feel!
More seriously, though, the Games for Windows program is a natural response to the general crappiness of Windows games of the last few years. There have been tons of titles that:
1) Crash constantly
2) Don't support common configurations, like Internet Connection Sharing or widescreen monitors
3) Don't allow users to alt-tab to different applications, or run the game in windowed mode
4) Manage to sometimes not crash, but are otherwise extremely buggy to be almost unplayable
5) Require Admin permissions to run even though they're video games which, almost by definition, never need to perform any administrative tasks
6) Take months and months and months and years to finally port, or patch, their products to work in Vista. (As of a month ago, Punkbuster *still* didn't work correctly in Vista! Pathetic!!)
etc.
Microsoft can control what's released on their game consoles, as they retain the final "yay or nay" before the games get published. That means Microsoft actually tests the games to make sure they work correctly, shock and horror.
They currently have absolutely no control over what's released for PC, which I'm sure the Slashdot community sees as a good thing, but in reality results in a lot of really, really crappy products.
After a couple weeks of trying (and failing) to look past Battlefield 2142's numerous, numerous crashes and bugs, I finally threw my hands up, said "fuck it," and vowed that I'm only going to buy Games for Windows games from now on. You know why? Games for Windows games are *tested* and they *fucking work!* It's obvious that DICE didn't give half-a-shit about the quality of their product, so screw them.
(Yes, yes, I know, tell us how I really feel. Hah.)
The only decent non-Games for Windows titles out right now is World of Warcraft, which would fail that certification anyway. (It stores user-configurable UI Add-Ins in the Program Files folder, thus requiring admin access when it shouldn't.) Everything else it's good at though.
P.S. I hear the latest patch for BF:2142 added widescreen support-- wow, welcome to 2001, DICE!
How many years has it been? I think it's time for the mountain to come to Mohammad on this issue.
If you want drivers, there's one thing you can do: Make it insanely easy to write drivers for Linux, or make it insanely easy for Linux to run existing Windows drivers.
Money talks; right now, companies don't write open source drivers because there's no money in it. Maintaining their drivers is more expensive, and there are very few customers (harsh but true) who actually care.
Dreamhost have about 3 or 4 IP addresses that all Dreamhost-hosted domains resolve to, and yet they are hosting thousand if not hundreds of thousands of domains. There's no limit to how many domains can be on a single IP, nor (for that matter) is there a limit on how many IP addresses can be used by a single domain. (All the Disney-owned sites are actually hosted by the single domain "go.com", including ABC, ESPN, etc.)
No, you can't sell it, any more than you can sell your telephone number.
800 (and presumably 888 and 900) numbers are bought and sold all the time.
I'd just be happy if Amazon learned about "gifts." No, you computer program, I'm not a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan! My BROTHER is and I bought him a present! Cripes![1]
That said, I'm generally happy with its recommendations. Except once they recommended a pay-per-view event that actually prompted me to write an angry letter of the form "what the hell made your database think I had a ComCast subscription, more-over would be interested in pay-per-view?!) But those terrible recommendations only stand out because the good ones go unnoticed. I'm always first in line to get the next MST3K boxed set, because Amazon knows I like it and emails me when it comes out-- that's nice.
[1] Yes, I know you can look up the product again and click the little "don't use this product for recommendations" link, but that's a huge pain.
It's slightly better once you know that the slender "things" were actually future robots, not aliens. I agree, though, that movie should have ended at the bottom of the ocean; the end is just a cleap "tear-jerker" to get an emotional response and it dilutes the intellectual response.
Or how about that picture of him when he was dressed up in traditional Somali garb (=90% Christian), claiming he was dressing up as an muslim
Not that I agree with the inaccurate characterization, but Somalia is 90% (probably more) Muslim, not 90% Christian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Somalia
Wow, how liberal do you need to be to think Salon.com is anything within a million miles of a neutral point of view?